


Spoils of War

by romanticalgirl



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dead sea fruit</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoils of War

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://nolivingman.livejournal.com/profile)[**nolivingman**](http://nolivingman.livejournal.com/) for beta duty. She worked hard for her money this time. Also, Horatio is an ASS and Lady Barbara is an entitled bitch at the end of  The Happy Return. Just FYI. Originally written for the [](http://aos-challenge.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://aos-challenge.livejournal.com/)**aos_challenge** prompt - Prizes
> 
> Originally posted 5-13-07

She is a prize.

As desirous as a clean lined ship, a first rate or frigate captured in battle or by surprise, though her value is rated even higher than whatever King and Admiralty would grant him.

More than that, she is an unattainable prize. He can watch her for weakness in her defenses and learn where she lists in the weather, how she suffers to pull in her sail. He knows her now, strengths and weaknesses, knows how to capture her without a battle, no cannons fired, no bloodshed.

The problem is that a prize belongs to another man, another country. A prize is a calculated risk turned to reward. Yet she belongs to no one, free for the taking by any man brave enough to take her on. He watches her lines; her flagrant display of her colors and knows he is worthy of the task, up to her challenge.

However, while she belongs to no man, he is owned by a parcel of carefully written letters, a knitted scarf and a promise made years before fate and chance shredded it like worn canvas in the wake of a storm.

She dances close with the waves like a mythical creature calling out her siren song, tempting him to try, to end up smashed on the rocks that lie beneath in the depths. He hears her on the wind, full of promise and possibility, and he wants to take her, capture myth and make it real.

That is what prizes are, what they should be – solid ships and smooth wood, silvered sails worn sharp with salt. Sloops and frigates, first rates and ships of the line meant to be commandeered and commanded. The promise of riches to provide, not the glimpse of possibility denied.

Still, the water sends shimmers of gold along the sweep of her, reflected and refracted by crisp, bright cloth and the sway of the sea. He watches her with Captain’s eyes, covetous eyes, imagining the riches she represents to him, the value of owning her, taking her. He imagines breaching her defenses and her surrender, offered up in words gone breathless from the battle.

The course of the attack is clear and sharp in his head. He would lie alongside her in the guise of friendship. Fair trade and fair winds, good friends well met as they danced to the whispered song of the ocean, moving next to each other in an easy alliance. She would sweep past him; broadsides and gun ports open like a smile as bright as sunlight, a flash of metal and mettle, of promise and threat all in one.

They move slowly, neither wishing to show too much, wanting the edge, needing surprise. She is bold courses plotted out with words and gestures while he is motion and momentum. They narrowly avert crashing, collision seemingly imminent and then pulled away by the tide.

The next attack falls to her. It runs his course, plotted out side by side and in step, falling so easily into a rhythm without conscious thought. She matches him step for step, stride for stride. They move with purpose and intent on one another, and he can see the sway of her, see her falter. He knows he could press his advantage, step forward and claim his prize, but holds back, the restraint just long enough for her to reach out and lay her hand on his arm.

The contact doesn’t last long, just long enough to splinter his senses, severing his control. He draws back and she smiles at him in triumph, taking the victory as hers as his step falters. She continues walking and he is careful not to hurry after her, letting his longer stride fall back in rhythm with hers as he pulls alongside her, the wake of the touch still rippling between them. She smiles and nods to him as they move in step, finishing their walk along the whitewashed boards in a strange, uneasy silence.

There falls a truce between them then, a sort of peace that is filled only with whatever thoughts they allow to show in their eyes. It is the one area he knows he fails in schooling himself, his eyes give him away every time, so he takes great pains to avert his gaze, to keep from looking at her when she can see him, preferring instead to cast his glance when she is involved in a discussion with Bush or when she is playing her guitar, accompanying herself as she sings. He allows a smile at that, so sure is she of her victory as she plays and sings, her words and notes falling on his deaf ears. But still, he cannot help but look.

It comes to an end, to a final battle as they near St. Helena. Each previous skirmish forgotten in every way but the study of tactics and advances, lost in kisses and touches, desperation and need. He kisses her with passion and possession, needing to own some piece of her, to claim what is rightfully his. She is his. He knows it from the return of her kisses, the hard press of her touch against his neck, the thread of her fingers through the thick mass of curls.

The problem with prizes, he knows as he claims one last kiss, is that they require you to step away from what you have known, from the steadfast ship beneath your feet and onto new planks and decks, rife with hidden dangers. They require courage and freedom to claim them, to steer them home.

He has won this battle, he thinks as she leaves the room, as bitter as the victory tastes in light of the coldness in her manner as she walks away from him. She leaves as though nothing has happened, as though they have not just fallen down in their hunger. He has the battle with her surrender, their surrender, with her confession that she is his.

She is his prize. He can take her, but he cannot claim her, and so he has no choice but to let her go.


End file.
